Do not expect the WTS to make any radical break with its current position on the blood issue. They have already done everything they can to set up a scenario by which this just goes away and becomes long forgotten... it's just taking longer than they thought. By now, any one of several blood substitute products was supposed to have found its way to market. That's the way it appeared, anyway, four or five years ago. As some of you know, these substitutes have so far failed to pass all of their clinical trials.
In the meantime, however, members of the HLC across North America have largely succeeded in positioning bloodless medicine, or transfusion-free surgery as it's sometimes called, as the new standard and a best practice. Therefore you can, in almost any metropolitan area in the U.S., check into a hospital which will promise to manage your case without blood transfusions. Most of these hospitals have been guided by JW's in terms of setting up procedures. Often the hospitals have a director or manager of the program who is probably a witness, likely a former member of the HLC, who coordinates the program, trains doctors and nurses on what is acceptable, or not, to the average JW, and counsels JW patients so that they are more likely to accept all those "gray area" practices that can save their lives.
The JW patient is made to feel not only welcome but even special, with a special wrist bracelet i.d. that carries some sort of visual "no blood" symbol, which is also on the patient's chart. In some hospitals, admissions personnel are trained to ask each patient if they want the "no blood" surgical option. JW patients end up on a surgical wing or floor where every single doctor and nurse they meet has attended in-service training and has pledged to support non-blood medical management of each case.
This is reality. What is truly bizarre is how few JW's are really aware of this, even when the majority of their local hospitals offer this service. The degree of ignorance by individual elders on this subject is appalling. To this day, some will get up in the congo and talk about medical meanies who are out to force you to violate your conscience and take blood; some have even questioned the motives of these hospitals--whose very programs are the result of WTS initiatives.
This has preempted the blood issue in nearly all cases where the patient is informed. JW's are one successful blood substitute trial away from having the whole issue evaporate, and then the WTS can simply declare victory and move on. It has taken them 15 years to get to this point. Don't expect them to bail out now.
